Reflection on Aristotle's poetics 1 poetics mainly discusses tragedy, and epics also involve some, but they are also used to set off tragedy. In his bones, Ya Weng advocates that tragedy is a world-class literature.
The most wonderful part of Poetics is the discussion about the plot. The plot is an imitation of a character's behavior and has a certain length. Now it depends on this definition to discuss the plot of the novel. Weng's head is really a miracle. Thousands of years have passed, and we are still copying his thoughts. Aon obviously advocates the supremacy of plot. I think people are reading stories, not people. A person without a story, of course, not many people pay attention to it. Even if modern modernists play with stream of consciousness, engage in formalism and pay attention to the psychology of characters, they can't change people's love for stories.
Sudden turn and discovery. The sudden change of current terminology means that the plot changes from prosperity to adversity, and vice versa. Many story lines attract the tears of the characters in this way. In the recent love movie "Love under the Hawthorn Tree", the hero and heroine were pure in love, and finally the hero died of leukemia under the Hawthorn Tree. There is no obvious sign when the hero dies, which is a sudden turning point. Pure love, beautiful scenery, things got better, and finally no lovers got married. This love tragedy makes people sad, in fact, it took a sudden turn.
Discovery is a process from unknown to known. In fact, it is the discovery of identity. In Tangshan Earthquake, Fang Da found a square lantern, and the two brothers and sisters knew each other, which led to the encounter between mother and daughter and finally contributed to the "solution" of the story. However, this story is very false. According to the law of possibility and inevitability, it is not established to find the lost relatives in Tangshan earthquake when Wenchuan earthquake happened. Hamlet's hero found that his father was killed, which is a good discovery.
Reflections on Aristotle's Poetics 2 Aristotle is an encyclopedic scholar. His masterpiece "Poetics" is the first literary theory work in the real sense in the west, and his reading experience of "Poetics" is 2000 words. As Chernyshevski said: "Poetics is the first and most important aesthetic paper, and it is also the basis of all aesthetic concepts until the end of the century." His statement is very apt. Although the length of Poetics is short, its theory is incisive and distinguished. This is a literary theory work worthy of our serious study.
On poetics, the first thing worth studying is the theory of imitation. Aristotle regards "imitation" as the characteristic that distinguishes poetry from natural science works, emphasizes that imitation is human instinct, abandons Plato's "logical formula", affirms the authenticity of the real world, and also affirms the artistic authenticity of imitation, and sees the dialectical unity of universality and particularity. In the first chapter, he mentioned that "the compilation of epics, tragedies and comedies, the compilation of De Culambo and most of the music for Alos and Harp are basically imitations." It also affirms that imitation is the origin and essence of art, and art cannot express beauty without imitation. "Some people use colors and shapes to imitate, while others use sounds to achieve the same goal. Dancers express people's personality, emotions and movements through the rhythm of dance. " Certainly imitation should rely on a certain form, but also combine the content. All art, all art that can be called beauty, is the unity of content and form. In addition, he mentioned at the beginning of the second chapter that since imitation is to show people in action, then these people must be either good people or vulgar people, and the characters they describe are either better than us, worse than us, or equal to people like us. "This further illustrates the relationship between literature and reality. The people represented by literature and art are either prototypes in real life, or on this basis, they shape characters at a deeper level, not limited to simple imitation. On the basis of the original work, they integrate their own emotions and sublimate the characters, so that the characters in literary works are more aesthetic, with ordinary personality and special performance. In Chapter 25, Aristotle advocates describing things or characters as they should be, which is his ideal creative method. When creating, he should follow the inherent law of the development of things, affirm the authenticity of art and the reality of literature and art, and describe the characters as "reasonable" and "in line with the inevitable or possible law". Therefore, in Chapter 15, he requires the characters to be good, appropriate, similar and consistent, and must always conform to the inevitable or possible principle. If the story is realistic and makes people feel immersive, the poet should, like a painter, draw a more beautiful portrait than people on the basis of depicting the prototype. Therefore, Aristotle's view on imitation emphasizes its authenticity, but the unity of content and form, as well as the in-depth description on the basis of imitation prototype.
Aristotle's Poetics also profoundly discusses the theory of tragedy. Tragedy is a kind of value experience caused by tragic conflicts and tragic events in the art world. Aristotle mentioned in the thirteenth chapter that the most perfect tragic plot should be single-line and complicated, and it should show the characters turning from prosperity to adversity. Unfortunately, this is because they made some serious mistakes. That is, the tragic hero's "fault theory": the tragic hero's experience is not due to the injustice of fate, but to some fault or weakness, and his personality is "similar" to our own, so as to make the tragic works perfect and achieve the dialectical unity of morality, logic and aesthetics. In addition, he mentioned the "purification theory" about tragedy, which purified the two emotions of pity and fear and "provided the public with a harmless and acceptable way to adjust their physiology and mentality." In other words, the essence of purification is the combination of education and aesthetic feeling. In tragedy, the plot is its soul, and the sudden turning and discovery are the most touching parts of the plot. The idea of tragedy is very important, and so is the language of its media. However, his tragedy theory also has some limitations. The more important moral function of tragedy is that it can make people understand the profound philosophy contained in life, learn from experience and accept lessons.
Furthermore, Aristotle also emphasized in Poetics that art is an organic whole, and only when some parts are closely related to all can harmony be produced. In the eighth chapter, he argues: "Since the plot is an imitation of action, it must imitate a single and complete action. Moving or deleting any part will make the whole loose and cracked. " Therefore, a good work of art should be closely combined with the whole to achieve the realm of beauty. In the seventh chapter, he also mentioned that the plot should be a whole, consisting of the beginning, the middle and the end. The whole composed of these parts should have an appropriate length, that is to say, the work also has its golden ratio, and only when it reaches that appropriate level can it be called beauty. Aristotle also asked poets to be rational. "Poets should try their best to put the scene in front of their eyes and see it vividly, as if they were there." In other words, the creator should conceive the whole work as a whole, and don't limit his eyes to what he sees.
"The land is always wet after rain, but rain is not the only reason to make the land wet." You don't see the beauty that others think, or you have another standard. You can't say it's not beautiful.
Finally, Aristotle's Poetics has its unique and great literary connotation, but it also has certain limitations. His aesthetic view has a certain class nature. In the third chapter, he wrote: "Sophocles is an artist of the same kind as Homer, because they all imitate the nobility." In chapter 13, he clearly mentioned: "The best tragedies are based on the stories of a few families." Therefore, Aristotle's literary thought has a certain class nature. Sometimes, extraordinary things are often done by ordinary people.
Although Aristotle's literary theory has some limitations, his progressive thought is still worth learning from later generations. Poetics is not only the crystallization of ancient Greek literary thoughts, but also an important basis of major western aesthetic concepts. It became a model for later generations and laid the foundation for the development of western literary theory, which has been dominant for more than two thousand years.